Kuala Lumpur - Part 1

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Another early start and before we knew it we were shooting down the highway heading towards Kuala Lumpur (aka KL) in the flashiest bus ever, our seats were the size of arm chairs!!! It took about 4 hours to get there from the Cameron Highlands. We were luckily dropped off at the main bus station (Puduraya) right in the heart of Chinatown and where we had chosen to stay whilst here. Our home for the 2 nights we were here for was The Original Backpackers Travellers Inn and for 32RM we had another cell with shared bathroom and a window looking out onto the corridor where all the washing machines and dryers were. It even had roach bate under the bed, a good or a bad thing we hoped we wouldn’t find out!!!!

We dumped our bags had a quick shower and headed out to the old colonial quarter and Merdeka Square, apparently the best area in KL where it still has a historic character. We weren’t that blow away by the historicness of the place but it was nice and tranquil. The square holds a wonderful English cricket ground, where in 1957 Malaysia’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdu Rahman, declared independence, he took down the union jack and raised the now Malaysian flag. The flag pole he did this on is a 95m high flag pole, apparently the tallest in the world!! Surrounding the square is the Royal Selangor Club, once the British elite’s favourite watering hole, unfortunately the building is not the original one as this burnt down in a massive fire, it was rebuilt to its previous structure in the 1970s. To the north of the square past some 100 year old fountains is the Anglican St Mary’s Cathedral built in 1894, not as spectacular as some back at home but it was nice to see a church all the same.

So after a wonder around the square we headed towards the “old train station” which was recommended to us by a few people, now we’re not sure if we went to the wrong building but we were assured by many people it was the one we were looking for. To be honest we were slightly disappointed, it certainly wasn’t the best colonial building we had seen on this trip, and in fact the building across the road where the main railway head quarters are based was more impressive, we even tried to go in to have a look around but that was a no go.

Still needing to find something for G’s dad for Christmas (it appears you fathers are very hard to buy for when travelling) we ventured into the Central Market next door to the massive Jamek Mosque. We weren’t dress appropriately to go into the mosque but you could see from wondering around the walls that it was a lovely place for the Muslims to go and prayer and have a bit of quiet time. The Central Market, built in the 1920’s, was full of what Tony can only describe “tacky souvenir stalls” the ones where people crowd round and spend all their money on junk they wouldn’t bat an eye lid at back at home for, however, G found some nice places, including the way out of our price rage Selangor Pewter shop. With the old quarter covered in our first day in KL we were ready for beers and dinner so off we ventured around Chinatown to find some yummy roast pork and rice for 5RM a serving!!!

Doing what the guidebook recommends we choose to do the modern part of the city on our last day in KL, so not as early as we hoped we set off in search of the world famous Petronas Towers next to the MASSIVE Suria KLCC shopping mall. We got there at about 9:30 conscious that normally all the free tickets to the Skybridge are gone by 10am. We got into the queue and after about half an hour were given our time slot of 12.00pm. With a few hours to kill we thought we’d put ourselves through hell and wonder around the fantastic Surai KLCC shopping mall, drooling at everything we couldn’t afford to buy, G even tortured herself by wondering around the Tiffany & Co shop, helpfully pointing out to Tony the rings she liked the most, although this naturally fell on deaf ears!!!

Before we knew it, it was time to head up to the Skybridge, 41 floors high within the Petronas Towers. The Petronas Towers are 452m high and are ranked up there with the world’s tallest buildings. Interestingly, the towers’ eight pointed cross-sectional profile draws on Islamic art, whilst the profusion of squares and circles on the interior walls symbolise harmony and strength. It is also permeated by Chinese numerology in that the towers have 88 floors and the postcode 59088, eight being a very auspicious number for the Chinese. The Skybridge is designed to be an emergency exit from one tower to the next, although it makes a nice tourist attraction with no emergencies (touch wood) ever happening. Before we got to head up to the Skybridge, we got to sit through a 7 minute 3D video, which we watched wearing our 3D glasses we were provided with, the video consisted of what we can only describe as an advert for Petronas. After our video we were ushered to the service lift which was mega fast, they go one floor per second. We had our allotted 10mins on the Skybrige before being ushered back down to the ground and back into the massive shopping mall. All in all a great little spot of sightseeing.

We spent the next few hours wondering around the shopping mall making sure we had been to every floor and been into every shop of interest to us, making a mental note of everything we want to buy once we have money again. Once we were shopping malled out we headed outside for the usual tourist snaps of us and the Petronas towers.

Having spent pretty much the whole entire day in a shopping mall without buying anything apart from a very expensive (in backpackers terms) Starbucks, we headed back to Chinatown via the LRT and Monorail. We had found a cool little bar down our road the night before called the Monkee Inn which we went back too, the owner nicely recognised us and brought out our much deserved Tiger beer to our table mmmmm. After G devoured a very tasty homemade pizza from the Monkee Inn, we of course went back to the stall that did the roast pork and rice for 5RM for Tony before heading back to our gaff for an early much needed night. With still plenty to see in KL we had left some things to do on our return in a few weeks time, long story why we are visiting KL twice, short of the long is, bad planning from our behalf.

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